By the Light of the Moon - Ms Moonlight
by Fanfictionpreservation
Summary: The mystery of Paul's scar revealed. - By Ms. Moonlight not me
1. By The Light Of The Moon I

_AN: I am not the original author of the story below my goal is to gather any stories from around the web and have them in one area so that they don't get deleted. If you are the original author and would like me to remove this story I will._

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><p><em><strong>By the Light of the Moon<strong>_

The day after Christmas found Paul relaxed and enjoying his large family at his dad's home in Wirral, just outside of Livrepool. His friend, Tara Browne, had driven from London to visit. They spent the day talking, laughing, eating and drinking. The sun was now setting, and Paul felt a bit restless after such a lazy day, being unused to inactivity.

"Let's take the mopeds I hired over to my cousin Bett's," he suggested to Tara who had his feet up by the fire and was yawning sleepily.

"Eh? You want to ride motorbikes in the middle of winter? It's bloody cold out there!" Tara replied.

Paul stood up and stretched. "Come on, the fresh air will do you good, lazy sod." With that he added a sly wink after a sidelong look at his father dozing before the fire with his newspaper.

Tara looked confused, but only for a moment. "Right, jolly idea. Let's go then."

They bundled up in their coats, gloves and hats. Paul's stepmother followed him back out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel and tut-tutting them for their foolishness.

"Out there in the dark and cold, who know what could happen, Jim." She poked Paul's dad in the arm.

He awoke with a start and glanced at the two boys by the door. "Aye, Angela, boys will be boys," he shrugged. "Everything in moderation, lads, just the same," he added.

Tara elbowed Paul in the side as they replied, "Yes, sir, right," and stumbled, snickering, out the door together. Poor Dad didn't realise they were getting out of the house to "have a laugh," code for smoking a joint.

They snuck around the corner of the house to the back of Jim's extensive garden. Perching on the edge of a picnic table, Paul pulled a joint and several pints of ale from under his coat and waggled his eyebrows.

"Ah, cheeky devil. Right under your step-mum's nose," Tara laughed.

Paul lit up with a flourish as Tara popped the lids from two of the ales. They sat in contented silence for a while, taking hits and sipping their drinks. Of course, they got sillier and sillier, the slightest thing setting them off into storms of giggles. They finished off the last of the ales. Tara was starting to feel the chill when Paul said, "Ok, let's be off to Bett's."

Tara looked at him, "What? Are you serious?"

Paul pulled him up by the hand, slung his arm over his shoulder and walked him over to the carpark where the mopeds stood. "Tara, my boy," he announced pompously, "I'm never serious."

In their present condition, drunk and high, the two found that statement hilarious and leaned on each other giggling. "Quiet!" Paul finally said, "They'll hear you!"

"Right, yes," Tara replied, rather dazed.

Paul got on one of the bikes and revved the engine. "Come 'ead!" he encouraged.

Tara looked skeptically at the dark sky, but the moon was casting light enough to see by. "Oh, all right, McCartney. Just for you." He clambered on the other bike, pulling his cap farther down over his ears, and kicked the motor into life.

They eased out of the drive and onto the deserted street. They grinned at each other as the cold air made their eyes water. "This is bloody nuts!" Tara yelled, his breath pluming out of his mouth in a white stream.

Paul laughed, his teeth gleaming in the darkness, and zoomed ahead to lead the way. As they turned down another street, the moon appeared before them, immense, silvery bright and full. Paul was entranced by the wintery sight and turned back to Tara and gestured at it.

"Look at that! It's gorgeous!" He gazed up at the moon again, unable to take his eyes from it. Suddenly he realised too late that he and the motorbike were leaning at a rather severe angle. Time seemed to stop as he also realised that his face was about to meet that lovely hard pavement beneath him. As he desperately tried to jerk the cycle back upright, time resumed all too quickly.

"SHIT!..." and then-WHAM-

From behind, Tara looked away from the hypnotic moon just in time to swerve around Paul as he fell. The bike and Paul skidded sideways, and unfortunately, Paul's face was the first thing to land on the road. Tara winced and jumped off his moped in horror, running back to where Paul lay facedown on the wet street.

Ignoring the still-running bike, he knelt next to Paul and put a hand on his shoulder, "You all right, Paul?"

Paul groaned, stars swirled before his eyes. He rolled over onto his back, dazed and stunned. Tara got a good look at him by the light of the moon and blanched, "Good God, what've you done?!"

Paul frowned at him as he slowly sat up. He started to ask Tara what he meant when he felt something wet running in warm rivulets down his chin, soaking his collar. He reached up to touch his mouth, but Tara's hand stopped him.

"Don't mess about with it," he said shakily, "It looks like you'll need stitches."

"Oh hell." Paul winced as he spoke and then an odd expression came over his face. A moment later, he spat out a piece of white tooth.

"Oh fuck."

His left front tooth had broken in half and gone through his lip, splitting it wide open. "Anything else hurt?" Tara asked in concern.

Paul shook his head slowly as Tara took him by the elbow and helped him stand up. Tara handed him a handkerchief to put over his profusely bleeding lip. "You're a mess," he commented as he pulled Paul's cycle upright.

Paul snorted, but the strange sensation that caused stopped him from laughing. "Well," he said with some difficulty, "We're closer to Bett's than my Dad's. Let's just go on."

Tara raised his eyebrows, "Sure?"

Paul nodded and got back on the bike as Tara ran to his. As they rode, the frigid air seemed to help slow the bleeding, but Paul could still feel it trickling down, and the coppery taste of it in his mouth made him feel ill.

When they arrived at Paul's cousin's house, they parked the mopeds and walked up the front steps where Paul knocked on the door. Bett answered, delighted to see him, and gave them both a warm hug. She couldn't see Paul's face clearly in the darkness of the porch.

"Uh, don't be alarmed, Bett, but I've had a bit of an accident," Paul warned as they stepped into the warm, lighted parlor.

Bett laughed, "Now what have you done, you silly boy?" She turned back to him and the smile died on her lips as she caught sight of his face. Her eyes went wide and her hand flew to her own mouth.

"Holy Mother of God!" she gasped.

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><p><em>An: I fixed some spelling mistakes. If people think I shouldn't edit it, I can upload the raw one instead.<br>_

_Ex: __rivelets __to __rivulets_


	2. By The Light Of The Moon II

_AN: I am not the original author of the story below my goal is to gather any stories from around the web and have them in one area so that they don't get deleted. If you are the original author and would like me to remove this story I will._

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><p><em><strong>By the Light of the Moon II<strong>_

"It's all right, Bett. I just took a spill off a motorbike," Paul said quickly, glancing at Tara who also looked very pale. He dabbed at his lip, which was starting to ooze copiously again, and was surprised by how red the handkerchief was.

"Oh, Paul, sit down here, let me call Ed Taylor, a friend of mine who's a doctor..." she trailed off, gazing at his lip.

"What, is that really necessary?" Paul asked in dismay. He looked from Bett, to her husband, to Tara. They all nodded. Paul got up, marched to the mirror hanging in the hallway and took a look at himself. He saw scrapes and scratches running the length of his cheek with bits of gravel embedded in them. There was a particularly nasty scrape along his left temple. The entire lower half of his face was encrusted with fresh and drying gore. He could also see his chipped tooth through the gap that his flapping upper lip revealed. Looking even closer, he could see the lighter pink meat of the muscle inside his lip where it had split apart.

"Oh, all right, then," he staggered back to the chair, feeling queasy, as Bett jumped up and called her friend, who agreed to come right away.

She had Paul put an ice pack to his lip, which was swelling quite quickly. Tara looked uncomfortable. "That'll probably keep you from singing for a while," he observed.

Paul just looked at him with dark eyes over the ice pack.

The doctor arrived and examined Paul's face, tsking and shhing as he cleaned and sterilized. "It'll need stitching," he said as he rummaged through his bag.

Paul raised his head to watch the doctor pull out a long needle and some clear thread. He widened his eyes at Tara in a staged look of helpless terror. Bett laughed.

"Oh, you," she said affectionately.

The doctor seemed more nervous than Paul as he struggled to thread the needle with shaking hands. Paul hoped he wouldn't sew his lip back together crooked or something. He could see it now on the covers of all those teenie-bopper magazines-him with a great, fat, twisted lip.

"All right then, got it. Steady on," the doctor said as he put the needle through the first half of the wound. Paul winced and tried not to jerk his head away. Afterall, it was a sensitive spot with no anaesthetic. The doctor's hand shook again as he pulled it through.

"Oh, the thread's come out-have to do it again," he said in agitation.

Paul's toes curled, but he sat still through it as the doctor tried again and pulled the two flaps of his upper lip neatly back together with several small stitches, covering the chipped and jagged tooth.

"Good as new!" he said in a jolly (and relieved) tone and began packing his things in his bag. "Keep ice on it for the swelling and be careful how you open your mouth-might want to stick to broths and liquids for a day or two."

Paul thanked him as best he could and Bett went to see him out the front door. Paul glanced at Tara.

"Jolly good wipe-out, that was," Tara said cheerfully, "Teach you to drink and drive, mate!"

"Shh!" Paul tried to form the sound, but his swollen lip made it come out like "Fhh."

Tara started laughing and Paul tried not to, but also began laughing, which stretched his lip tight across its stitches. "Ow, ow, stop it!"

"Keep a stiff upper lip, lad," Tara admonished, roaring at his own wit.

"Ow, knock it off, you bloody fool!"

Bett returned in time to see Paul standing over Tara with his hands clenched around Tara's neck. "Oh honestly," she muttered under her breath.

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Nearly a week later, Paul dropped by at John's house to work on a song. When he answered the door, John stared at Paul and asked, "What happened to you?"

"Aye? Oh, the tooth-bit of a motorbike accident back at me dad's."

"Fall on yer face, did ya?" John asked amused.

"I was lucky that's all that happened, being as pissed as we were," Paul laughed.

"Oh? Who else?" John asked with raised eyebrows.

"Tara was visiting." Paul continued telling John how the doctor went about sewing him up as they walked to John's kitchen.

"I think being drunk and stoned help deaden the pain. Didn't really feel a thing-it was more the idea of a needle being stuck through my lip."

John shuddered as he filled the tea kettle. "Can they fix your tooth or are you always going to be this ugly now?"

"After the lip heals completely they'll cap it," Paul replied wryly.

"Tsk, tsk, don't be wreckin' yer pretty face, son. It makes us money!" John said in a wheedling old man voice.

Paul grinned, "Not to worry, not to worry. The stitches come out Friday."

But there remained a scar on his lip, and the chipped tooth wasn't capped until months later. It can be seen on the Beatles' _Rain _promo clip shot that summer. And, of course, the scar helped fuel the "Paul is Dead" rumor and was supposedly the reason why Paul grew that sexy moustache. But now you know what really happened that fateful night...by the light of the moon.


End file.
